1. Field of Invention
This invention is directed to apparatus for singulating generally flat material such as mail and more particularly to such apparatus involving unattended operation.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The automatic singulation (separation) of odd shaped mailpieces from a stack of such pieces has historically been a problem. The type of mail falling into the category of odd shaped mailpieces includes, but is not limited to, newspapers, magazines, film for developing, developed film, boxes of new checks, envelopes with return checks and so called "flimsies". An example of a flimsie is a computer generated invoice where the invoice is already inside the envelope when the computer information is added. Such envelopes and invoices are made of extremely thin paper thus giving rise to the name of "flimsie".
The common approach to singulation is to manually singulate such pieces. Automation attempts include having a pusher that ideally pushes one item at a time from a stack or loosely layered pieces onto a take away conveyor while a raised lip prevents other items from passing to the take away conveyor. Unfortunately, due to the shape of the above-mentioned types of mail, the pushing effort often results in two or more pieces of mail being simultaneously passed to the take away conveyor and therefore remaining unsingulated or results in crushing of mailpieces against the lip. This later problem typically occurs when a relatively large and floppy piece of mail, a newspaper for example, is partially resting above a smaller chunky piece of mail, a box of checks for example.